Officials learned from other rail systems, but SunRail still won't work for everyone

Sunday

Apr 27, 2014 at 8:33 PMApr 29, 2014 at 8:52 AM

By Mark Harpermark.harper@news-jrnl.com

DEBARY — Diane Kierstein wants to ride SunRail, but the new commuter rail may not work for her.The Deltona mom would like to read a book on her way to work, instead of dealing with the stress of Interstate 4. She'd like to be home in time for dinner and her son's Boy Scouts meetings.“I'm hoping this whole train, SunRail, is going to be what I think it's going to be,” she said.But the new $1 billion commuter rail line starting in Central Florida on Thursday might pose challenges for commuters like Kierstein, whose job as a legal assistant at Darden Restaurants' corporate headquarters in Orlando is more than six miles from the nearest SunRail stop at Sand Lake Road.While state transportation officials say SunRail can't serve everyone, its success, to a great extent, will rely upon resolving hurdles — finding ways to get potential riders like Kierstein to their jobs and adding more routes, such as to Orlando International Airport, to build ridership.For a model, SunRail officials didn't have to reinvent the rail. Across the country communities have built rail transit systems in the past 25 years — including Dallas, Charlotte and Tri-Rail in South Florida. The SunRail team looked to these systems for best practices on how to operate a commuter rail. No one will know how well their studies and decisions will work until mid-May, when two weeks of free rides on SunRail come to an end, and paid fares begin May 19. SunRail projects 4,300 riders daily. Project manager Tawny Olore is optimistic about reaching that goal based on early ticket sales and fanfare at a series of community events, such as one in DeBary on March 29 that drew more than 800 people.“I'm not sure how many they were planning,” she said, “but we were pleased, absolutely, and I can tell you that's not an isolated instance.”

Attracting buzz is one thing. Building ridership is another, commuter-rail operators say.Tri-Rail, the 72-mile system linking West Palm Beach and Miami, is the only other commuter rail in Florida. It was the first one built in the United States in two decades when it opened in 1989.It was conceived as a way to alleviate congestion on Interstate 95 during a major road-widening project. With just 1,700 riders on its first day, Tri-Rail failed to meet expectations, and some news reports noted trains routinely arriving at destinations 20 minutes late.For years, it struggled, even surviving talk among some of its board members of folding. Yet today, daily ridership routinely is nearly 10 times what it was on Day 1. Today, fares contribute $13 million of its $75 million annual budget — or 17 percent.Over its 25-year history, one of the biggest lessons for Tri-Rail officials is making sure riders can get from their train stop to their destination, typically work.“One of the things we stress about using Tri-Rail is the connectivity. That is the key, and that will be the key for SunRail, too,” said Bonnie Arnold, a Tri-Rail spokeswoman.Tri-Rail has more than 30 free shuttles running from many of its stations to nearby destinations. Tri-Rail also connects to buses and Miami's Metrorail light-rail train. Fort Lauderdale is starting Wave, a trolley system using federal funds. And Tri-Rail is rebuilding its southernmost station to have better connectivity with Miami International Airport.By comparison, SunRail will start with two free Lynx Lymmo buses circulating through downtown Orlando. Riders can transfer to Lynx and Votran buses for free if they are not taking buses across county lines.“Sixty of our routes are going to be touching SunRail,” said Matthew Friedman, a spokesman for Lynx. “Every service change we made in the last two years has built up to the SunRail launch.”SunRail supporters, including former Volusia County Chair Frank Bruno, say it will take years — decades even — before SunRail fulfills the vision of extending to popular destinations, such as Disney World and Daytona Beach.“I may not see anything like that in my lifetime,” Bruno said. “It's going to take time to build this system. ... Eventually we'd love to see SunRail run from the Daytona Beach area all the way through Orlando and the attractions to the Tampa Bay area.”

One of the biggest challenges of commuter rail is changing America's car culture, especially among commuters. But rail supporters say they've done it in some unlikely places, including in the land of bullhorn hood ornaments — Texas.“People think of Dallas as a place where people prefer to drive, but they have a train system that's expanding and is adding new rail lines,” said Virginia Miller, senior manager for media relations at the American Public Transportation Association. Daily passenger trains started in 1997 with the Trinity Rail Express that runs between Dallas and Fort Worth. In its first full year of operation, the line carried just under a half-million riders, according to Morgan Lyons, a spokesman for the Dallas Area Rapid Transit network of buses, commuter trains and light rail.By 2002, ridership grew to more than 2 million, with the peak coming in 2009, when 2.7 million people rode.Dallas officials learned that changing the car culture came down to basic economics, especially as gas topped $3 a gallon.“It was a combination of things, gas prices and also in 2009 unemployment was peaking,” Lyons said.Critical to the success of Dallas' rail system have been connections and destinations. Having trains run past the major medical centers and the arenas where the Dallas pro basketball and hockey teams play helps provide consistent ridership.“Most of our trips are work-related,” Lyons said. “We connect to the major employment centers. We also connect to major entertainment destinations.”SunRail officials say they've followed this model, as well, with the initial 31-mile route making stops in downtown Winter Park, at Florida Hospital and throughout downtown Orlando, including near the Amway Center, where the Orlando Magic plays.

Projections call for SunRail to attract 4,300 paid riders each day, a figure used by the Federal Transit Authority, and for fares to contribute about 25 percent of the annual $19.4 million operations and maintenance budget paid to Bombardier, the Canadian-based private contractor that will operate SunRail. But SunRail officials say they are prepared for more riders than that.“We hired professionals to come up with what they think is the ridership, and then the federal government tells us what they think and their number is typically smaller,” said Noranne Downs, who is overseeing SunRail as secretary of the Florida Department of Transportation's District 5 office in DeLand.In Charlotte, for instance, the light-rail system Lynx opened in 2007 with a third more riders than initially estimated. Daily train ridership has consistently remained around the 14,000 or 15,000 mark, said David McDonald, transit planning manager for the Charlotte Area Transit System.“We opened and we basically met our future ridership right at the beginning,” he said.Some of the lessons Charlotte learned early on are now being applied to the system's first major extension.Initially, the region started with a nearly 10-mile line and now is expanding it nine miles to the north, including to the University of North Carolina-Charlotte. The new extension will have fewer park-and-ride lots, but larger ones that are built closer to the end of the line.“With parking, the demand was much higher at the end of the line,” he said. “People who would drive to a parking lot and see that it's full ... maybe you go to the next one or you may go all the way to your destination.”Based on that information, SunRail designed parking lots to meet demand in the 20th year of service, not the first, said Downs with FDOT. SunRail did that even though empty spaces initially might create a perception problem, she said. Charlotte transit officials also suggested having surveillance cameras at all stations and aboard all trains. And SunRail has adopted that, as well.“To make sure everybody knows there's cameras on there — that has helped a lot on cutting down on potential incidents,” Downs said, referring to crimes.

Despite all the planning and lessons learned, SunRail ridership mostly will be built on one simple question: Will the commuter rail work for me?That's the question for Kierstein, the DeBary mom who would like to ride SunRail but hasn't decided yet. Cost isn't a big factor. She drives a Toyota Prius hybrid that uses less gas than most cars. She expects to spend about the same on gas or a $112 monthly SunRail pass.Now, she usually leaves home around 6:30 a.m., trying to make it to work by 7:30. On a fast day, she arrives a few minutes early. On other days, it can take as much as 90 minutes and on rare occasions, even longer.“If I am saving anything, it may be only my time. However, this all depends on the daily traffic,” she said. “Some days it's horrible. I don't even want to imagine what it'll be like come construction time (to widen I-4) ... in the rain ... on the Fairbanks curve,” she said.If she takes SunRail, the Sand Lake Road station is more than six miles from her office. Lynx operates a bus from the station to her office at 1000 Darden Center Drive, but it would be a two-hour trip — completely impractical for her, she said.Her employer held meetings with dozens of employees and is considering options, such as organizing its own shuttle, vanpools or carpools from the Sand Lake station. With only days before Thursday's start of SunRail service, she's still waiting for a way to make it work.